Night of Knives

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Agayla had merely crossed her arms. Kiska had imagined her hard reproving stare. A look that seemed able to melt stone. The soldier had hurriedly raised a hand against the evil-eye and drawn his sword.

  ‘Curse me, will you—’ he snarled.

  Another soldier pushed this one aside. He too wore marine greys, though these hung loose, frayed and discoloured. Kiska caught the flash of silver regimental and campaign bars at his breast. An Imperial veteran.

  ‘There are plenty of wax-witches and sellers of love potions elsewhere,’ Agayla told this one. ‘You aren’t going to harass me, are you, sergeant?’

  This soldier drew off his gauntlets and slapped them against his cloak. Rust-red dust puffed from the cloth. Ochre dust! The very sands of Seven Cities still caked to the man’s cloak? The veteran and Agayla eyed one another. After a moment he spat to one side, muttered, ‘We’ve five cadre mages with us if push comes to shove, you know.’

  ‘Go ahead and summon them. But think of your mission here, sergeant. Is it to train these men, or to lose them?’

  The solder snorted at that, said under his breath, ‘Train my ass.’ He inclined his helmeted head to Agayla, waved to the troop of soldiers. ‘Get a move on, you worthless camel shits.’

  The one who’d been shoved aside raised his sword. ‘But Aragan, this is one of ‘em . And they say she’s—’ He eased up close to the sergeant, whispered something.

  Kiska thought she heard the word rich. The veteran snatched the man’s sword from his grip and hit the flat of the blade across his shoulder. The man yelped and ducked from sight.

  The sergeant shouted after him, ‘I said get a move on! Damn your worthless hides.’ He turned on Agayla, pointing. ‘You,’ the fellow ordered, ‘keep that damned door shut or I’ll come back here and drag you out by the hair.’

  Agayla inclined her head in kind. ‘Yes, sergeant. I shall.’

  When Agayla came back upstairs, Kiska told her that she would never forgive her for locking her inside during the most exciting day she’d ever known. Agayla had merely cocked one brow. ’Exciting?’

  Now, here she was, once more in Agayla’s chambers, on another similar night. Yet again she had delivered herself into the protection – and judgement – of this woman.

  Kiska cleared her throat. ‘This is what I’ve been wishing for all my life. Please. Let me do something.’ She stared to one side, not daring to catch Agayla’s eye, afraid she sounded like a spoiled child. In the air above the basin of water she saw vapour curling. Vapour?

  Agayla remained silent.

  ‘Auntie . . . what is that?’

  Agayla peered down. She went still, then whispered, ‘Dear Gods.’

  What moments before had been a basin of hot water was now a frozen hemisphere of ice steaming next to the fire. Kiska said softly, ‘What’s going on?’

  Her face rigid, Agayla rose. The fabric of her skirts whispered as she crossed to an old desk piled with scrolled correspondence. ‘Very well,’ she said brusquely. ‘I have to admit that I would prefer to keep you here against your will.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘But then you would never forgive me, would you?’

  Kiska merely nodded, fighting a smile and the urge to throw herself at the woman’s feet.

  Agayla sniffed, plucked a scroll from a cubby-hole. ‘Yes. All these years wishing for action, marooned in this forgotten corner of the Empire, and now you have it, and more than you or I expected, I should think.’ She scratched a message on a yellow sheet. ‘If you must do something or never forgive yourself – or me – then I will give you something to do.’ She rolled the parchment, sealed it with a drop from a candle, and pressed a ring into the wax.

  ‘Well?’ She waved Kiska over. ‘Come here. Now, take this to the man you call your target. Do what he says after he’s read it. Hmmm?’

  Kiska tucked the scroll inside her shirts. ‘Yes, Auntie. Thank you so much. But who is he? Where will he be?’

  Agayla waved the questions aside. ‘He wouldn’t appreciate me telling you. But if anyone can take care of you this night, he can. You’ll find him somewhere between here and Mock’s Hold. And girl, if he gets to the Hold before you reach him, don’t go in there. Promise!’

  ‘Yes, Auntie. I promise.’ She hugged Agayla round the neck, inhaled her scent of spices.

  ‘Now, child,’ she warned, pulling away, ‘you might not thank me later. I’d rather you stayed. But somehow you’ve become entangled in all this, so I must not interfere.’

  Kiska nodded, adjusted her shirt, pocketed vest and cloak. She touched gingerly at the dressing over her neck and found that the pain had gone.

  Agayla took one of her hands. Kiska glanced up and was surprised by how the woman studied her, her eyes warm, but with a touch of hardness. ‘There are things out there that would crush you without a thought. If you should meet one of those beasts, just stand still as if it were any normal wild animal.’ Agayla took a slow breath. ‘It should ignore you.’

  Now that she was free to head out under that moon, Kiska paused. That bellowing. The scouring of those claws on cobblestones. Fear crept back. She ventured, her voice faint, ‘Yes, Auntie.’

  ‘Good. Now, before you go, I’ll prepare some things for you to take,’ and she led the way to the front.

  Temper shouldered Coop on his back while Coop’s boots dragged behind, scoring twin trails through the mud. One of the brewer’s beefy arms was slung stiffly across one side of Temper’s neck. The other Temper trapped in his left hand, one of Salli’s largest cooking knives gripped in his right. Coop was a heavy man but Temper ignored the weight, concentrating instead on watching Back Street, and stepping carefully through the trash-littered alley. Moonlight shone down, rippling and shifting as the clouds roiled above. The way ahead appeared empty.

  Knees bent, he shuffled farther down the alley. Coop’s wide body brushed against the walls to either side until he stepped into the street. He stopped at the first door on his right: Seal’s residence.

  ‘Seal,’ he called, trying to sound hushed. ‘Seal. Open—’

  A howl thundered through the town, seeming to erupt from every alley mouth and street. Temper lost his footing and nearly dropped Coop.

  ‘To Hood with this.’

  Grunting with effort, Temper cocked one foot and kicked. The door crashed open, the jamb splintering. He threw himself in, dropped Coop, then stood the door back up against the frame. Embers glowed in a stone hearth along one wall, but other than this the only source of illumination was moonlight streaming in through the broken doorway. He saw a chair and kicked it over to wedge against the door.

  ‘Don’t move!’ a voice ordered from behind and above.

  Facing the door he froze, raised his arms to either side. ‘It’s me, Seal, Temper.’

  ‘Turn around!’

  Temper turned, squinting. In the dark, he could just make out Seal standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a nightshirt. He was holding something – a huge arbalest that was balanced on the second-storey railing.

  ‘It’s me, dammit!’ Temper growled.

  Seal didn’t move. ‘Yes, I can see that. You’ve got a knife. Cut yourself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cut yourself. On your hand where I can see it.’

  ‘I don’t have time—’

  Seal levelled the crossbow. ‘Do it.’

  Coop groaned from where lay, stirred sluggishly.

  Temper clenched his teeth then pressed the kitchen knife’s keen edge into the flesh at the base of his thumb. Blood welled, running down his hand and forearm. He held up his lacerated thumb. ‘See?’

  Seal grunted, took a few steps down the stairs, the crossbow still aimed. Closer, Temper saw that the weapon was an ancient cranequin-loading siege arbalest. One of the Empire’s heaviest, ugliest, one-man missile weapons. Seal could barely hold it upright and steadied himself against the banister. Temper fought an urge to jump aside in case it triggered accidentally. If it did, he and the door would have dam
ned big holes in them.

  ‘Careful . . .’ he breathed, his stomach clenched.

  Seal appeared surprised, then glanced down at the weapon and lowered it. ‘Sorry.’

  It wasn’t even loaded. Temper let out a breath, shook his head. He should’ve noticed that.

  Seal dropped the arbalest on a table and knelt beside Coop. ‘Hurt?’

  ‘No,’ Temper laughed. ‘Just scared into a dead faint.’

  Crossing to the hearth, Seal touched a sliver of wood to the embers and lit a lamp. ‘What happened?’

  Temper surveyed the street through the propped door. ‘Let him tell you when he comes around; I don’t have the time.’ He turned. ‘You still have my gear?’

  Seal nodded. The long and loose kinked curls of his black hair spilled forward over his face. He motioned to the rear. ‘In the storeroom.’

  ‘Right.’ Temper stepped over Coop.

  ‘Wait, dammit.’ Seal waved helplessly to Coop. ‘Help me get him onto a bench.’ With a sigh, Temper pulled aside a table. He grabbed the unconscious man under the shoulders while Seal took his feet. Together they swung him up onto one of several benches that lined the walls of the room. Waving Temper aside, Seal began unknotting Coop’s apron.

  Temper lit another oil lamp. ‘Why the cut?’

  Seal was bent over Coop’s head, examining his eyes. ‘What?’

  Temper held up his blood-smeared thumb. ‘My hand. Why’d you make me cut my hand?’

  Seal raised his head, smiled. ‘Ghosts don’t bleed, Temper.’

  ‘That damned arbalest wouldn’t be much use against a shade.’

  Seal shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘Well, I couldn’t load it anyway.’

  ‘Fener’s tusks, Seal. You’ve got to get yourself squared away.’ As he reached the storeroom door Temper thought he heard a woman’s voice call down to Seal, and the medicer’s soothing reply.

  In the storeroom, behind a travel-chest, he found the bundle of possessions he dared not keep in his room. It was wrapped in canvas, as long as his length of reach. He set it onto a chest and began unbuckling the two leather belts holding it together. Tossing back the oiled hide, he pulled out two belted and sheathed swords. These went over each shoulder, the blades hanging at his back. Short, blunt fighting daggers went beside each hip.

  He groped behind the travel chest again and pulled out another bundle, head-sized. Holding it up in one hand, he peeled aside the soft leather. A helmet stared back at him. It was of blackened steel with a mail coif hanging like tattered lace all around, and an articulated lobster-tail neck guard. The T-shaped vision slit and closing cheek guards fixed on him like a ghost from the past: the severed head of his alter-ego. His breath caught; for so long he’d dared not even look at it. He found his armoured gauntlets still stuffed into the padded space within. The stink of sweat, oil, and, he supposed, blood, was prominent. He could almost hear the clash and wails of battle. He shook his head free of the clinging wisps of memory and tucked the helm under an arm. Picking up the oil-lamp, he snorted at the quilted muslin shirt and leather vest he wore. He’d look like a blundering fool strutting around in his bare padded shirt, armed to the teeth and crowned with a helmet!

  Downstairs Coop lay moaning, a wet cloth covering his face. Seal crouched at the hearth of mortared stone, feeding a growing fire. A black pot steeped over the flames.

  ‘What kind of poison you boiling up?’ Temper dropped the helmet onto the table.

  Seal turned. His gaze shifted from Temper’s weapons to the helmet on the table. His answer died on his lips. Still eyeing it, he shook himself. ‘Just some barley soup. I’m hungry.’

  Temper felt his own eyes drawn the same direction. The helmet looked like a grisly trophy. He cleared his throat. ‘Ah, Seal, you wouldn’t happen to have any armour around, would you?’

  Poking the embers, Seal snorted. ‘You’re not actually heading out there again, are you?’

  Temper bristled. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be that important, Temp.’

  ’I don’t even know if it is. But I’ve got to find out.’

  Seal raised an arm, pointed to an iron-bound chest against the far wall.. ‘My great-uncle’s. From the Grist-Khemst border wars. Long time ago. All I’ve got.’

  Temper unlatched and opened the chest. Togg’s teeth,’ he breathed. Inside was a jumble of bundles, sacks, bits and remnants of armour: swatches of mail, grieves, boiled-leather vambraces set with steel rings. From amongst this tangle he lifted a cuirass and skirtings that looked long enough to hang to his knees. It consisted of a front and back with shoulder and side strapping, and coarse scaled sleeves. A leather underpad, almost as thick as his thumb and softened by years of use, supported a layered and patched hodgepodge of mail, bone swathing, studs and horizontal steel, ribbed down the front and back. Interlocking iron rings were sewn from the waist down and over the slit leather skirting. He hefted it, whistling. Whoever humped this over a battlefield must’ve been a bull of a man.

  Temper examined the straps. ‘Hadn’t they heard of using the point up there?’

  ‘It was all hack-and-slash in the north back then.’

  He nodded, thinking back to all he’d heard of the generations of internecine warfare between the Gristan minor nobles and their confusion of principates, protectorates, baronies, and freeholds. He’d joined up long after the Emperor had pocketed them like so many paltry coins.

  He caught Seal’s eye. ‘Can I use this?’

  He waved a help-yourself.

  Temper pulled off his weapon belts and began readying the cuirass. While he worked, Coop groaned, then pulled the wet cloth from his face and raised his head. He blinked at Temper. ‘What happened? What’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m going after those thieves, Coop.’ Temper raised the undershirting, began wriggling into it.

  ’Thieves? But, Trenech . . . he, and then he . . .’ Coop groaned again, shut his eyes. ‘Burn preserve us.’

  Seal cocked a brow, mouthed, ’Thieves?’

  Temper shrugged. He was struggling with the side-buckles, and for a minute Seal just watched. Then he crossed the room, pushed Temper’s hands away and began expertly fitting the leather straps. Temper watched his deft fingers.

  ‘You’ve done this before,’ he joked.

  Seal glanced up, his mouth tight, then returned to his work. The anger in his eyes startled Temper. ‘Usually I undo the armour. And usually the soldier is lying down, spitting blood and absent a limb or two.’

  Temper swallowed at the bitter tone, but said nothing while Seal sized the cuirass as best he could. Finished, Seal slapped him on the back and said acidly, ‘There you are. Fit for the Iron Legion now.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Temper said, not caring if Seal took offence because he meant it. Yet, in his peculiar way, Seal had both praised and damned: for while the Iron Legion had been an elite heavy infantry regiment, it had been annihilated during Kellanved’s invasion of the once independent kingdom of Unta.

  Whatever Seal had seen or been through during his career as medicer for the Malazan Army, it must’ve been soul-destroying to have left such scorn in one still so young. When Temper had first arrived, he’d met the young scholar at the Hanged Man and often they’d talked. But while Seal seemed eager for the company, he also seemed impatient, damning everything Temper had to say. The young man had also picked up an addiction to the stupefying D’bayan poppy during his travels with the army. The habit disgusted Temper. Eventually they’d argued and Seal ceased coming around. Temper had counted on Seal being conscious tonight, but more than half-expected to find him insensate instead, embalmed in a cloud of choking jaundiced smoke, grinning idiotically while the town went to Hood around him.

  Seal retreated to the table, but shied away from the helmet. He smiled suddenly and laughed. ‘I suppose tomorrow they’ll be clamouring for my services. Fluttering rich Dowagers with vapours to calm and nervous disorders to diagnose.’ His gaze passed over Temper quickly, reste
d on Coop. ‘Don’t let anything happen to you because you couldn’t afford me.’ He gave a sour, self-deprecating smile.

  Temper tucked the helmet under his arm. ‘Sorry about the door.’

  Eyes closed, Seal shrugged. ‘I guess it’ll be open from now on. Come around and show me what’s left of you.’

  Temper hefted the door to one side. ‘Will do.’ He gave a salute – the old Imperial fist to chest. ‘Thanks for the armour, and stay off that damned smoke.’

  Sighing his distaste, Seal answered the salute.

  Temper jogged up Back Street, heading for the Old Stone Bridge close to the swampy mouth of the Malaz River. Three blocks from the Hanged Man he came to a darker pool of wet on the cobbles around a pile of viscera. He stopped, listening. The night was still. The surf moaned, strangely muted, while the wind whispered and gusted. The surrounding streets showed no other sign of violence. Crouched on his haunches, he looked more closely. Human innards, steam rising in the damp air. Was this all that remained of Bell, late guard at the Hanged Man? Was it a hound’s work? It looked more like the attack of a predatory cat such as the catamounts of the Seti Plains, or the snow leopard of the Fenn Ranges of northern Quon Tali. Still, that damned baying sounded as if it reverberated from a beast the size of a bhederin.

  He stood, eyed the frowning cliff face and Mock Hold, perched above like a dark thunderhead. No lights shone, no fires burned along its walls. It was as if the fortress was as lifeless as a crypt. Yet Temper felt certain he’d find the answers to tonight’s mysteries concealed within its halls. At least he hoped to; he had no idea where else to look. He jogged on, heading across the centre of town.

  On Agayla’s doorstep, Kiska had waited, enclosed in a hug that seemed to go on forever. Letting go, Agayla had eventually stood back, hands still tight on Kiska’s while she stared out into the darkness. For one terrified moment Kiska had thought she would forbid her to leave. She revisited her haunted vision of wasting away on the tiny island, walking in circles round and round its narrow shores. But the instant ‘Burn watch over you’ had passed the old woman’s lips, Kiska’s thoughts were free to fly ahead into the night. She waved goodbye, but her mind already was on Cutter’s Strait – the main north-south concourse dividing the old town from the new.